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Average user rating:
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Full user review
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3 out of 3 people found this review helpful
4.0 stars
"Its like a swiss army knife. Has everything you need to get the job done in a nice tidy package."
Pros: Lots of features, 2 TV tuners, OTA HD tuner, component, 600gigs
Cons: only 1 gig of ram, only 3.2, needs lots of breathing room, 2200 bucks
Summary: I have had the Z558 for about a month now and have not had any major issues. I primarily use it as a general purpose pc and not as a Media Center as it was intended.
As a PC it is a tad underpowered. The 3.2ghz P4 640 makes you yearn for the 3.6 or a core duo when multi-tasking such as recording a show while burning a DVD or converting a video. Although the 1gig of DDR mem is in the form of a pair of 512's as to utilize double data rate, it just isn't enough for high end games or multiple running applications. The 128meg nvidia 6600 does a fairly decent job of keeping up with the system as long as your not playing Battlefield 2 with all settings up.
What does this all mean? Here are some of the things I have encountered: I get some dropped frames when playing X3 the Reunion but that is with every possible setting bumped up. I have seen some video artifacts during recording of shows if I am using the PC at the time. Nothing major, just some pixelation here and there. It once errored out while burning a DVDR at 16x when I was doing other things. I retried at 12x and had no issues. Since then, I have burned other DVDR's at 16x and have not had any issues. It may have just been a fluke. Another issue I had is trying to find a program other than the one included which would record from the Svid input. I am currently still troubleshooting. I have only found the Sonic Software that is included to work. It may have something to do with the dual tuners being of the same identical brand/model.
The good news is that 2 of the 3 parts are swappable. Video card is PCI express so you can throw in the latest and greatest Vid card. I would stick with Nvidia as i did notice the component, svid, dvi, vga outputs are all connected to the vid. Keeping with the same brand would better your chances of being able to use all the outputs. Memory is just your over the counter DDR. The maxt recommended is 2 gig. Popping in 2 more 512's would help utilize double data rate. It would probably take two 1gig sticks just fine if you were adventuresome. This is going to be my next upgrade. As for the CPU, it is a standard Intel socket 775 w/915 chipset, so theoretically you can wedge a 3.6ghz P4 in there. If someone wants to give me 3.6 ghz I am willing to try.
It comes with a 300gig removable firewire HD on top of the 300gig internal which would come in handy if you had 2 PC's and needed to transfer large files, such as videos you recorded, back and forth. That is if you couldn't use the 1ghz network card. The HD looks pretty and slides into an easily accessible but proprietary bay that hides it from view. You would have to buy the HP HD if you wanted to expand using the same bay.
The Z558 does have 7.1 surround sound via SPDIF for you hardcore audiophiles. For the general user it also has optical out for a digital connection to your 5.1 receiver and standard L/R RCA outs.
The keyboard is miniature compared to your fullsize keyboard but it does help if your using it as a Media Center as intended. I found it slightly annoying as the numbers are slightly offset. I always hit the 5 key when I mean to hit the 6. The remote has a standard layout and easy to use. The trackball leaves something to be desired as the ball is on the right and your buttons are on the left. There isn't one hand surfing the net going on here. You are better off buying a wireless mouse if you intend to use it a lot.
The software is standard on most PC's. It obviously comes with MCE but has some HP programs that fill in gaps left from MCE. I only use MCE when listening to the radio, CD/MP3, watching a show, or just playing with MCE itself so I cannot objectively comment on its functions. My pet peave about MCE is that I can't get it to stop playing things. Once I get the radio to start I can't seem to find a way to stop it without exiting MC or starting another video/song. I found that you can connect online and watch a large collection of music videos or little featurettes that VH1/MTV runs.
Overall I think the general public would find the Z558 efficient and useful. Those who do light duty video capture and editing will appreciate the dual tuners and firewire ports. Hardcore gamers should probably look into building thier own system with faster CPU, more mem, and a better Vid card. As for me i am enjoying the Z558 and still have not utilized all its functions.
Hope this review helped and have as happy of a purchase as I did.Updated
I just bought an XBOX360 and found that it easily connects the Z558. The z558 streams photos, videos, live TV, and music all via wirelessG. The z558's remote even works with the Xbox360 abeit a little function limitted. All MCE PC's will be able to act like this though so its a small addition. Although now I can leave the z558 in the computer room and access everything through the 360 in the living room. Thats a big plus.
Where to buy
HP z558 Entertainment Center (Pentium 4 640 3.2GHz, 1GB RAM, 300GB HDD, XP Media Center 2005):
$804.99
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eCOST.com
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$804.99 |
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